Even though the production crew of the original film knew that the kraken was Norwegian, they decided that “as a name for a sea monster, it was too good to miss”. Somewhat more recently, the film Clash of the Titans (1981) and its recent remake (2010) have brought the kraken into the universe of Greek myth, where its battle with the hero Perseus forms both films’ epic conclusion. His description of the kraken influenced many later literary works, including Alfred Tennyson’s famous poem, Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866) and Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870). Erik Pontoppidan, the Lutheran Bishop of Bergen, described it in 1753 as a giant octopus with long arms whose descent to the bottom of the ocean to feed caused a whirlpool in its wake. Hans Egede, a Norwegian missionary, described a kraken as covering the whole sea when it surfaced and capturing victims with its claws. The kraken has been portrayed as monstrous throughout literary and movie history. But the new animated film writes a different narrative for this legendary creature. It belongs to Norwegian folklore and written descriptions of the beast can be dated to the 1100s.
When you think of a kraken you probably think of a sea monster of enormous size, lashing out to sink ships that sail too close to it. And her nemesis is a megalomaniac mermaid. Oh, except the girl is actually a kraken. Ruby Gillman’s story follows a fairly standard plot: an adolescent girl longs to go to prom but must overcome both her overprotective mother’s objections and conflict with a new popular kid at school.
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